talks about KANN CUBE. This player is an unsealing machine I bought from a dealer in Jinan before the epidemic. I met by chance. The former was so crazy. After buying it, I found that the size was really inappropriate. I made two small bumps, so I asked the dealer to consign. At that time, I bought it at a very cheap price, and I am still complacent.
In May 2017, Astell&Kern released the new flagship SP1000. At the same time, the brand has also made strategic adjustments to the product series. AstellKern's fourth-generation player has opened up new naming methods: Auultima, Afutura and Anorma. Not long after, AK released a new product independent of the Three Realms - KANN. The reason why KANN is listed as a new series is because it adopts a brand new design language, focusing on the design concept of ALL IN ONE and a cost-effective route.
In addition, KANN is another product series with great exploratory and inherited significance.
In fact, the birth of the KANN series is related to exploration and experiment. That is, some products are designed without considering the volume. Engineers will first combine the circuit board with various components to test sound and indicators, and finally explore the possibility of portability.
So how do you explain "inheritance"? Take KANN for example. KANN actually used the technology accumulated during the development of the AK300 series, integrating AK3xx and AMP; and the second machine of the KANN series, KANN CUBE, uses the technology accumulated during the development of Afutura SE100. Audiences familiar with AstellKern products may notice the DualDAC architecture that the brand has always used. The SE100 is the only product in the three series Authima, Afutura, and Anorma that does not use the DualDAC architecture. This is because if the ES9038Pro uses the DualDAC architecture, it will not be inserted into the body of the SE100. How to stuff 2 ES9038Pros into a portable player without affecting heat dissipation and circuit stability? So, KANN CUBE was born!
It fulfills the long-cherished wish that AK engineers failed to realize on SE100! -------- Because of the emergence of KANN CUBE, from Wolfson to Cirrus Logic, from AsahiKASEI to ESS Technology, including WM8740, CS4398, CS43198, AK4490, AK4497EQ, AK4499EQ, ES9038Pro, flagship DACs of each brand have now completed the development of the DualDAC architecture, and are all made into AstellKern portable Hi-Fi lossless music player for sale.
This machine is interesting:
Gray body and horizontal and vertical concepts
KANN adopted a unique design language at the time, and the designer drew design inspiration from the large marble columns of the Greek Temple of the Parthenon. KANN CUBE returns to the origin of the brand meaning, because AstellKern contains the meaning of the birth of the origin of the universe, so the original design and the first-generation models mostly choose the color effect presented by the planet. The gray is highly similar to the color of the planet's surface and the concept of horizontal and verticality is inspired by the view of the steel and concrete forests in the city. In fact, as early as 2014, AstellKern built a 300B electronic tube machine with such a design language - Cube ONE. Unfortunately, this machine was not sold in bulk. When this design officially enters the consumer's vision, it will be the CD-Ripper MKII a few years later. KANN CUBE has followed the design again.
Of course, AstellKern also extends the concept of horizontal and verticality to the entire HiFi product line. Limited edition speakers based on this design concept appeared at Sotheby's auction, priced at up to $100,000.
The first player to change the key layout
AstellKernAll machines, play/pause, previous and next keys are all on the left side of the body. This is for one-handed operation, the left thumb or right index finger can easily touch and operate the machine. KANN CUBE is AstellKern's first portable Hi-Fi player that has changed the key layout, because KANN CUBE adopts the limit size of a portable player that can be put into a pocket. In order to facilitate one-hand operation, the three play buttons are moved from the left side of the body to the bottom of the volume wheel on the rear.This allows the right thumb to easily operate these three buttons when holding the player with one hand. Just imagine, if a traditional design is adopted, there are very few people in the world who can cover all buttons when holding KANN CUBE with one hand!
Portable limit
KANN CUBE can be easily put into the jeans pocket. Although it looks big, it weighs only 493g, while the weight of SP1000+AMP is 586.6g.
canceled the SD card slot
KANN's first generation machine supports dual-card slot design, and supports SD card and TF card expansion. KANN CUBE does not continue this design, although KANN CUBE can be fully equipped with a full-size SD card in terms of body size and PCB space. Technology has made rapid progress in recent years, and 1TB capacity microSD cards have been released, and the capacity of onboard memory has also been increased, so KANN CUBE gave up the SD card and only retained the TF card slot.
has been a breakthrough in joining the MINI XLR interface
AK product line. KANN CUBE has adopted the left and right channels physical independent amplification modules on both the 2.5mm quadrupole balanced output terminal and the 3.5mm unbalanced output port for the first time.
At the same time, KANN CUBE is the world's first portable player (for output) equipped with mini XLR port. Judging from the number of contacts and socket specifications, the 5Pin miniXLR and the 4.4mm balanced interface do not seem to be much different, but because the KANN CUBE's miniXLR port is specially used to connect external device amplifiers, it bypasses the internal op amp of the fuselage. Therefore, KANN CUBE uses a Kanon port with more obvious equipment properties and a more reliable connection plug on the body. Before
AstellKern also used mini Canonkou on AK Recorder, but it was used as a recording device at that time. This time it is used as an audio output function.
chat sound
No style is KANN CUBE's sound style! It uses two ES9038Pro in parallel to bring the 32bit/8 channel DAC to the extreme, bringing impressive low harmonic distortion and low noise floor levels. Paired with different types of headphones, you can feel the pure sound base of the player. In terms of output power, KANN CUBE is also improved compared to previous AK players. Its balanced output power reaches 12Vrms in high gain mode and a single-ended output reaches 6Vrms, which can easily drive most headphones.
paired with headphones such as LAYLA AION, T9iE, Philips SHP9600, and you can feel the sound characteristics of the player. It maintains the usual neutral and natural AK player, with almost no sound dyeing, and it can even be said to be unable to bring you "infectiousness". However, in terms of low-frequency strength and solid maturity of imaging, it is much better than the players before the third generation. It can be described as toughness to describe this kind of fullness in quality. Its excellent resolution and rich details are presented, and its wide and regular sound field is more suitable for listening to some large-scale classical music. Of course, matching it with some headphones with its own style can reflect the characteristics and taste of the speaker itself.
Take Philips SHP9600 as an example. The combination of the two has outstanding performance in low-frequency dynamics, speed and clarity. The voice is clear and natural, and the focus is on presenting details and information. This combination can create a real on-the-spot performance, with a regular and wide sound field and clear positioning of the instrument. Take the BWV1060/Bach C minor violin concerto that I often listen to, the details of the violin and accompaniment violin can be well displayed, and the levels and clarity between the various instruments are good. The violin's elegant and exquisite temperament and sometimes highlighted explosive power are withdrawn properly and accurately. Although it is a headset in the range of 1,000 yuan, the excellent sound performance of this player fully taps the quality and potential of the headset.
And T9iE, driven by KANN CUBE, can reflect the transparent and clean dye-free characteristics. At the same time, the excellent quality of the player brings excellent sound field performance to the headphones, stimulating the delicate and smooth sound style of the headphones.This combination can fully take care of the appreciation of various types of music under balanced output. Used to listen to Shaham and Sochel's "Paganini Guitar and Violin Duo", you can fully feel the regular and good sense of space of the headphones. The high frequency extension is excellent, and the violin shows a strong sense of transparency and density. This kind of detail and rich layered sound is often unexciting. I used it to listen to piano music. The overtone control is very well controlled and the levels reflected are also very rich.
LAYLA AION vocals are full in the mid-frequency, with very rich details, reflecting the musical vitality and tension of this dynamic iron earphone everywhere. The high frequency is slender and transparent, and the details and levels are expressed very richly, fleshy and skinny! This combination appropriately weakens the sound style of LAYLA AION's medium and low frequency, and reduces the sense of low frequency volume, which is controlled more rationally. But the strength and other aspects are enough to support it, it is full of dynamics and still surging! At the same time, this combination is particularly suitable for large-scale music production in the sound field, and it can bring people an excellent sense of presence and excellent listening in terms of details and clarity.
written at the end
KANN CUBE is the crystallization of AstellKern's inheritance and exploration spirit. It has expanded the R&D technology of SE100, making up for the regret that SE100 cannot be equipped with dual ES9038Pro DAC. Its breakthrough capacity of 2 9038Pros, while making full use of large space to solve the heat dissipation problem. For the first time, the left and right channels physical independent amplification modules were used on the 2.5mm quadrupole balanced output terminal and the 3.5mm unbalanced output port. At the same time, KANN CUBE AK's first portable player equipped with mini XLR audio output port, which also has more expansion space. The neutral sound style and huge reasoning also make this player more "versatile", but many people criticize its size, but compared to machines such as Suo60,000, its size seems so easy to accept. Because you can really stuff it into your pocket!
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